A right wing and a prayer

Page Tools

As the crisis inside the NSW Liberal Party deepened this week, the
spotlight swung strongly to David John Clarke, the right-wing
kingmaker. Robert Wainwright and Paola Totaro report.

SOME describe him as a right-wing extremist, a shadowy backroom
strategist intent on exploiting anti-communism and age-old cultural
and religious wars to bolster the Liberal Party's arch-conservative
wing. Others insist the 58-year-old suburban solicitor-turned MP is
simply a devout Catholic, a deeply conservative man whose zealous
interest in the state's ethnic communities is driven only by
altruism and the desire to preserve traditional family values.

Whatever the truth about David John Clarke, the dramatic demise
of John Brogden - and the sudden elevation of his conservative
colleague Peter Debnam - has confirmed that the upper house MP is
not only the leader of the most powerful factional force inside the
NSW Liberal Party but that this role is the culmination of a
deliberate, unswerving political and recruitment strategy which
began four decades ago - and has now come to a triumphant
fruition.

"The far right have never had such dominance. They control more
than 70 per cent of the executive, the Women's Council, the Young
Liberals and now, they - and David Clarke - control the leader,"
says a senior Liberal Party official.

To really get a sense of who Clarke is - and what shaped his
political beliefs - it is necessary to wind back to the mid-1960s.
Clarke, then a conservative and politically active law student,
joined a group called the Fifty Club, whose main aim was to provide
a forum for anti-communist campaigners.

The club was headed by Ljenko Urbancic, who had migrated to
Australia in 1950 and became active around the Liberals' migrant
advisory council, then a driving force in the recruitment of
anti-communists, particularly from central and eastern Europe. Many
had collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, according to
the historian Mark Aarons.

Urbancic, who was later exposed as a former Nazi propagandist,
was a charismatic figure and, with a handful of others, worked
meticulously to create an active, far-right bloc within the Liberal
Party. The first evidence of their activities emerged in 1966 when
they launched a vicious campaign against the Sydney lawyer Ted St
John, a candidate in the Warringah by-election. He was pilloried by
the faction as a "white traitor", his "crime" the support of black
political prisoners under apartheid in South Africa.

Clarke was then also an office bearer of the Australia Rhodesia
Association, a role he would retain until the late 1970s. The
faction had also launched its first major foray to seize strong
representation on the party's 800-strong state council, using the
recruitment strategies born in the '50s of targeting recently
arrived migrants, particularly those fleeing communist regimes, to
stack branches and increase its control.

By this time, the old migrant advisory council had evolved into
an autonomous party division, known as the Liberal Ethnic Council,
becoming the body which provided Urbancic, Clarke and others with a
formal vehicle to harness Sydney's migrant communities.

New and fertile ground was identified in the inner western
suburbs of Sydney, in and around Five Dock, Ashfield and
Strathfield.

Clarke told the Herald only this week: "As the executive
of the ethnic council we were asked to go to a lot of functions -
Greek, Italian, Serbian, even Thai. We went everywhere. It was part
of our job."

During the early and mid-'70s, however, the faction appeared to
fade away, out of the public eye, until the last part of 1975 when
Gough Whitlam formally recognised the Baltic states. Within two
years, the faction had re-mobilised, its strength documented in a
seminal, three-part exposé in 1977 by the journalist Robert
Darroch. "They are well organised and know what they are doing.
Like the communists, their organising ability gives them a power
out of all proportion to their numbers. They have the knack of
winning the support of people who do not necessarily share all
their beliefs," he wrote.

"The group makes particular use of migrant groups, such as the
Yugoslavs, Ukrainians, Chileans and Vietnamese. They move freely
from branch to branch, area to area, organising and converting.
Their growing influence is not only based on migrant groups. They
lean also for support on fringe religious groups."

Darroch's words are as relevant today as they were three decades
ago. It was this modus operandi - fanning, harnessing and
exploiting disparate ethnic groups and age-old tensions - which has
been the hallmark of Urbancic and now Clarke's faction and allies.
During the 1970s, at the peak of their power, the so-called Uglies
controlled as many as 50 of the party's 400 branches, held a bloc
of several hundred votes of the state council and were prominent on
the state executive.

In 1979, however, author Mark Aarons's radio program exposed
Urbancic's Nazi links, sparking his immediate suspension from the
state executive and the presidency of the ethnic council. Despite
this setback, moves to expel him from the party were stymied by a
handful of votes - organised by Clarke and a fellow Sydney lawyer,
Geoffrey Ferrow. Clarke confirmed he voted against the expulsion
because he believed Urbancic's denials.

Clarke says he should not be judged because he knew people like
Urbancic and anti-immigration campaigners like Robert Clark: "I
knew thousands of people."

Fast forward to 2005.

After 40 years organising and mobilising his conservative
following, Clarke is a parliamentarian, and the Legislative Council
chamber, according to his moderate Liberal Party opponents, has
become another recruitment tool.

"David Clarke's speeches, his words of praise for right-wing
organisations, fringe religions, specific ethnic groups, are then
taken directly out into the suburbs to help recruit members," says
a senior Liberal official.

"Recruiting new party members is one thing. But using the
Christian religion - and fear of other religions, whether it be
Islam or Judaism - as a wedge is entirely another."

A reading of Clarke's speeches collected in the parliamentary
Hansard shows a pattern: many were delivered just after attending a
specific community rally or celebration and the consistent theme is
a calling to individuals to be active flag bearers for democracy,
Christianity and the family against the "evils" of communism,
oppression and extremist Islamic elements.

In October 2003 he praised the Croatian community. "Its devotion
to Christian values and family life and its support of democratic
principles, fashioned by its decades of persecution under a
communist Yugoslav government, are values that greatly contribute
to the strengthening of the Australian community."

The next month he turned to the Egyptian Coptics: "I honour them
for their preservation and devotion to the Christian faith through
nearly 2000 years, a faith that has continued unabated despite
constant adversity and hardship."

The Assyrians were next, and their struggle for "the right to
practise unhindered their Christian faith, free from violence by
extremist fundamentalist Islamists".

On May 3 this year the MP declared that Lebanese Forces - the
right-wing Christian militia accused of killing more than 2000
Palestinians and Lebanese during Lebanon's civil war - were
"protectors of Christianity and the embodiment of the history,
faith and traditions of Christian Lebanon". He added that had it
not been for the Lebanese Forces, a Christian presence in the
country would probably no longer exist.

The Herald has learned that memberships show the impact
in party branches, particularly in the north-west, has been
striking. Dozens have joined in recent months, just as Assyrians
and Coptics found their way onto membership lists around Fairfield
and Macquarie Fields.

Clarke dismisses the link, though he concedes there has been a
growth in Lebanese Maronite Christian membership in north-west
branches where, he said cryptically: "I know people up there and
others know them as well. I think it's to do with
personalities."

Of the growth in Coptic and Assyrian membership, he observed:
"Look, I have made speeches about the Taiwanese and Vietnamese as
well. Tell me where there has been a growth in their membership. If
there is membership increase out there then it's probably because
that's where the communities are."

Clarke insists his appearances at ethnic functions over the
years are nothing unusual for a politician, pointing out that many
Liberal and Labor colleagues, including government front-benchers,
attend the same events.

Why he was so involved in the years before he became an MP is
another matter. "One thing is the communist issue … I had a
particular concern about the threat of communism and its
eradication of democracy, and I make no apologies for it," he
says.

"I also have an interest in ethnic communities because of the
people I have met. I make a point of attending as many functions as
possible. If they ask for help then I am happy to give it."

He is angry the Herald has highlighted his repeated
attendance over the years at functions organised by a group linked
with sympathisers of the Ustashi, a notorious far-right Croatian
militia group: "It is an absolute disgrace to suggest that I have
recruited sons of Ustashi members into the Liberal Party. I don't
believe there is a single example you could point to."

Asked if he was actively recruiting for the Liberal Party when
he attended and gave speeches at community functions, he would only
say: "I put the Liberal Party message to these communities and say
that I believe the values and views of these communities are best
represented by the Liberal Party."

This week, the former Liberal candidate for Auburn, Irfan Yusuf,
accused Clarke of using religious wedge politics to recruit new
members to the party, recounting a conversation in which Clarke
allegedly said: "Even if they're ALP members, we can get them in.
Take me along to their functions. I'd be happy to show them that we
hate homosexuals and Jews as much as they do."

Clarke denies the conversation ever took place. But the public
focus on his activities and his perceived beliefs is not about to
go away.

Next week, the MP will face the parliamentary privileges
committee over allegations that he made racist remarks to a young
Asian woman driver as he left the parliamentary car park last
December.

Clarke told Parliament that he did not even see the driver, only
her passenger, who was of "Anglo appearance", but said: "What are
you trying to do - we don't act like that to each other on
Australian roads.

"To suggest the words … have racist overtones is, to my
mind, being very precious and certainly drawing a long bow."

Page Tools

SPONSORED LINKS

More news

1125772697605-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/national/a-right-wing-and-a-prayer/2005/09/09/1125772697605.htmlsmh.com.auSydney Morning Herald2005-09-10A right wing and a prayerAs the crisis inside the NSW Liberal Party deepened this week, the
spotlight swung strongly to David John Clarke, the right-wing
kingmaker. Robert Wainwright and Paola Totaro report.National